Renewables firm EDF Energies Nouvelles has 1.9GW of renewable energy projects under construction in 2018, which includes 900MW of solar projects, according to parent company EDF in its annual financial report.

Two years ago the UK government’s new feed-in tariff regime came into force, starting an immensely difficult period for the solar industry. Deployment has fallen by nearly 80%, and thousands of jobs have been lost. This is the inside track of how it happened.

ALEC Energy, the renewable energy arm of ALEC Engineering and Contracting LLC, has signed off on a contract to develop a 6.5MW rooftop solar plant with Emaar Development for the Dubai Hills Mall project which is currently under construction.

Diversified renewable energy firm Shunfeng International Clean Energy (SFCE) said it would continue to report a net loss for 2017, due to product ASP declines and PV power plant grid curtailments in China.

Swiss-based PV manufacturing equipment specialist INDEOtec SA has successfully gained tool acceptance for its PECVD process tools from both Fraunhofer ISE and the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia for next-generation heterojunction solar cells.

German renewables firm ib vogt has started constructing a 166.5MW portfolio of solar projects in the Benban Solar Park, which were awarded under the second round of Egypt’s Feed-in Tariff (FiT) programme.

Vertically-integrated solar energy company First Solar will be involved in the first megawatt-scale battery system announced in Arizona since it was revealed the state could put a 3,000MW energy storage deployment target in place.

Enphase Energy has launched its seventh-generation ‘Enphase IQ’ microinverters for the Enphase Home Energy Solution with ‘IQ’. The ‘Enphase IQ 7 Micro’ and ‘Enphase IQ 7+ Micro’ are designed for worldwide markets and have started shipping to distributors in the United States. Enphase IQ 7 microinverters will continue to be phased into markets around the world through the first half of 2018.

Taiwan-based merchant PV manufacturer and downstream project developer Neo Solar Power Corporation (NSP) said its ‘Glory BiFi’ mono PERC bifacial modules had been selected for the Taipower’s ChangHua 100MW solar system project, potentially the largest plant to use bifacial modules to date.

Canadian solar manufacturers will suffer “immediate, severe, and irreversible injuries” as a result of the new US safeguard measures, according to a lawsuit they have filed against the Trump administration.

A research project to identify solar cell conversion losses and provide commercial solutions, which was initiated in December 2017 by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), has attracted ‘Silicon Module Super League (SMSL) leader JinkoSolar.

Publications

Welcome to the 38th edition of Photovoltaics International. There is every sign that 2018 is going to be a huge year for the industry as manufacturers continue investing in new tools and technologies. We will doubtless see many of the innovations whose evolution has been documented in these pages becoming increasingly mainstream.
Sticking with bifacial solar, Fraunhofer ISE takes a wide-ranging look at a number of challenges surrounding the technology’s leap to widespread deployment.
The Institute for Solar Energy Research Hamelin (ISFH) and Meyer Burger Technology AG present a novel bifacial module architecture.
The University of New South Wales, Trina Solar and BT Imaging give a suggestion for predicting the variation in multicrystalline cell performance by measuring the bulk lifetime of ingots.
We also have a look at PV recycling and lifecycle management from First Solar, PI Berlin’s assessment of PID issues in thin-film solar and TongWei presents a roadmap for PERC cells with 22% efficiency.

Issue 13 of PV Tech Power is finally here. This volume includes a three-part inverter special report, insight from First Solar about how its recycling procedures impact a project’s lifecycle costs, and must-read material from our colleagues at Energy-Storage.News. Alternative views on the role of blockchain in a modern power grid are revealed, and we bring you an exclusive report from the U.K.’s first unsubsidised, large-scale solar plant. A clean power investor offers his inside look at clean energy finance, energy storage as a replacement for traditional grid infrastructure is explored and so much more.